Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I welcome the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, that her opposition to the Clause standing part of the Bill is for probing purposes, as are some of the other amendments. We have all welcomed the review of the private patient income cap introduced by the previous Government following the judicial review by Unison of Monitor’s interpretation. The Government’s amendments go a long way to addressing our concerns about the extension of private income diverting NHS hospitals into private activity. I understand and have great sympathy with the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, in that respect. I ought to say that I have never, as an NHS consultant, practised privately. This is both an ideological and a practical matter. As I mentioned before in Committee, my own professional activity simply could not be done effectively without working in conjunction with social services, housing and the voluntary sector. It would not, therefore, have sat very easily with my activities. I have, of course, seen the very important role that private income plays in swelling the NHS coffers in many foundation trusts. However, it is worth reminding ourselves how dreadfully unfair that private patient cap has been. Hospitals like the Royal Marsden have a cap of 30 per cent, but they manage to do that work without any diversion of activity from their brilliant NHS service. Many acute FTs and all mental health foundation trusts have a cap of zero. For NHS FTs as a whole, the average PPI cap is 1.5 per cent of their income. The overall figure is therefore tiny. Foundation trusts’ private income was less than 2 per cent of their total income across the board. However, this income can be very welcome to individual hospitals. Anything that makes the system fairer for hospitals is extremely important. It is of course worth saying that ordinary NHS trusts do not have a cap and can make as much income as they like. We need a mechanism to enhance FTs’ commitment to remaining focused on NHS patients. I believe that all existing foundation trusts are focused on that, but if we approve the government amendments—Amendment 299AZA and one other—they will go some way to ensuring that at least the majority of activity remains as it is. In reality, private practice is not likely to extend very much. The provisions will prevent the kind of unfairness and terrible bureaucracies that have been associated with joint ventures and the complexities of the current rules which even the judge in the judicial review of the private patient income cap admitted were real practical difficulties for foundation trusts that needed to be addressed. The government amendments are strong, but I would not entirely not support some of the stronger amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams.